


Lesson in Super-heroing

by RORYhomie



Series: Evronians strike back [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017), PKNA - Paperinik New Adventures
Genre: Donald realizes he is not the one who can teach anyone anything, I hope, I'm Bad At Tagging, Idk what to say, ok, the fam realizes he was a teenage superhero, there is a cool speech in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25240117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RORYhomie/pseuds/RORYhomie
Summary: Donald patches himself up and is bombarded by questions about his "superhero friend". Eventually, Sunday comes and Paperinik is supposed to give Duckburg's new superheroes a lesson. But things don't go quite as planned and the Duck Avenger remembers all of his lost friends. Also Donald is sad because of Uno and Della thinks she has figured out what the deal with Donald and the Duck Avenger is.
Series: Evronians strike back [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828426
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	Lesson in Super-heroing

He walked slowly, his feet were heavy, and his head hurt. But after some time, he’d finally made it to the gate of the McDuck manor and let himself in. He thought about just sneaking onto his houseboat, without anyone seeing him like this, but he knew his luck.

And of course: “Donald! Where have you been? We were worried sick!” Della shouted as she walked over to him. He slowly turned around to say something but her horrified gasp stopped him.  
“Oh no, Donald! What’d happened?” she squawked pointing at his shoulder.

The makeshift measures had not lasted and there was blood seeping through his sailor shirt.

“I got hit by some sharp rubble,” he lied. “I’ll just-“

But he didn’t get to finish this sentence, because Della just took him by the healthy arm and dragged him into the kitchen. There she started to look for the first aid kit but couldn’t find it. She just gave her brother a nervous glance and muttered something about being back in a jib. So, he opened the drawer, in which the kit was now, took off his shirt and started to stitch himself together. Literally.  
A few moments later, after he had already almost finished fixing the exit wound at the front of his shoulder, Della came back. Together with Scrooge.

“Yea cannae know it, but the medical kit is in the drawer no- What in Dismal Downs are yea doing?” he shouted when he saw his nephew with a needle in his flesh.

But Donald was tired and hurt, so he kept in stitching and didn’t pay them any attention.

“Donald,” approached him Della quietly, “didn’t you want you want a painkiller for that?”  
“Nah, it’s alright,” he grimaced.  
After he saw her concerned expression, he added: “They don’t work on my anymore anyway. It’ll be just a waste of drugs.”

And with that he finally tied the thread and bit off the excess. After that he started to think about how he was going to approach the entry wound but suddenly Scrooge snitched the needle from his hand and started to do so himself.

“That irresponsible Italian idiot, he almost got himself and yae killed!” he muttered mostly to himself while he worked. 

Donald just looked at his sister, puzzled, but she just smiled and shook her head. Donald tried to say something, but Scrooge was obviously unsure about doing what he was doing, and his nephew was afraid that if he’d opened his beak, a pained moan would leave instead of words. So, he just listened to his uncle’s angry string of insults regarding his alter ego and stared begrudgingly at the floor. It felt as if he’d stabbed him in the back. Again, in these circumstances, quite literally.

But after a while, he noticed a trend in these painful remarks – they seemed to have centred around Donald getting hurt. Despite of himself, and his discomfort, he smiled a little. He lifted his eyes and met his sister's gaze again – she seemed worried but happy. And suddenly Donald was hit by the overwhelming realization that they actually care. But his brief fleeting happiness was overshadowed by the memories of what had happened to those who cared for him. His chest clenched and his heart pounded heavy. Nothing like that can happen to them or to the ki-

In that exact moment four little ducklings ran into the kitchen, with Louie at the helm.

“Why have you never told us that you knew Paperinik?! He’s my favou-“ the little boy stopped himself in his demands when he truly beheld the situation in front of him. After that he tried to say something more, but his beak opened and closed without making a sound. His eyes started to water, and he slowly walked over to his uncle to give him a slightly awkward side hug. He was soon followed by the other children, who all enveloped him from all sides. This commotion caused Scrooge to stab Donald with more strength, and also elsewhere than needed, but Donald did not complain. He just tried to hold himself together.

After a few moments Scrooge had finally finished his work and the kids let go of him shortly afterwards. He smiled at them: “What were you asking about, Louie?”  
“You know Paperinik.”  
“Yes,” admitted Donald awkwardly.  
“And you’d never told us.”  
“Yes.”  
“Why? He’s the best superhero ever! I would have loved to meet him!”  
Donald thought about it for a moment and said: “And that is precisely why I hadn’t done it. He likes his solitude and I had promised to leave him alone.”

Technically, he wasn’t lying. He is a bit introverted and…after the last battle with Evronians he had promised himself never to pick up the costume again. Unless absolutely necessary.

“But now you have to tell us!” started Dewey.  
“Yeah! Tell us everything! How did you guys meet? Where? How old were you? How old was he? Have you ever been in Italy with him? Had he actually ever been in Italy? What is his-“  
“That’s enough questions Webby,” stopped her Della calmly. “For now, but later I would also like to hear about your friendship with the Duck Avenger,” she winked at Donald in a way which gave him an idea that she knew something more than she let on.  
“Some other time, ok?” muttered Donald nervously. He had to gain some time to think about it.

“Or we could just ask him,” mentioned Huey casually, “since we are meeting him on Sunday.”  
Oh Phooey.

The days leading up the Sunday were extremely hectic and filled with a truly absurd amount of questions which Donald tried very hard to answer as vaguely as possible. When he finally made it to the job interview which he tried to get to at the day of the invasion, he got, unsurprisingly, not hired. It’s not that he was surprised, but he could still be disappointed. In himself.

The children didn’t help, as they always came up with more and more inessential inquiries about his “superhero friend” and Della did not lend him a helping hand either, as it seemed she enjoyed seeing him squirm under the avalanche of attention. And whenever he tried to get out of talking about “how cool Paperinik is” she would nudge him to keep at it, while Scrooge would either leave the room completely, muttering to himself, or simply loudly declare his dislike for the “sacrilegious sci-fi simpleton”. See, neither Scrooge nor Donald have mentioned that one of the first things Paperinik had ever done, was to rob Scrooge, but the disguised hero assumed that, despite the kitchen incident, it was the main reason for his uncle’s hatred of his alter ego.

Finally, the day had come, or rather the SUN-day, and Donald made an excuse that he had some tax filing to do, so he really couldn’t drive the kids to meet Paperinik, he was so sorry. Della just laid her hand on his shoulder and smiled:  
“Of course,” she said in a mockingly sympathetic tone.

After they’d all left, including Scrooge, which Donald found odd, given his disposition regarding the Duck Avenger, he ran outside and jogged towards the Ducklair tower. He knew that now he couldn’t simply walk inside, but he had an idea. He kept his grappling hook after the fight and aimed it at the metal gargoyle at the side of the building. It took a few tries but finally, he stood inside of his old lair again.

When finally there, he took a deep breath of the dusty air and looked at the deteriorated, and still deteriorating, state of his former second home. He didn’t mean to, but his eyes had wondered towards the empty glass globe again. When lacking its artificial green glow, it looked just cold and – and it painfully reminded Donald of his friend. They’d been through so much together and after what had happened, any memory of Uno, even the name itself, hurt, ached in the duck’s chest. So just like he’d done with Della eleven years ago, he simply forbade himself from talking or even thinking about his AI acquaintance. The former was easy, after Leyla and Raider got stuck in the future and Xadhoom met her faith, he had nobody left, who knew about his secret. And he had kept it that way.  
Nobody asks any questions, if they don’t even have an idea that they even could or what it is they should ask about anyway.

But not thinking about anything? When he saw Louie’s green phone, when he watched a silly sci-fi film about AI uprising with Dewey or when he heard Huey gush about some newest discoveries in the computer field, his thoughts wondered to this orb. Sitting empty and alone in his second home, to which he no longer had access.

“Ciao amico come stai oggi?” he mumbled while absent-mindedly placing his hand on the shell of his former friend. “Good? That’s good.”

He walked over to where he’d put his bloodied and torn suit and started patching it up.

“Lo come sono?” he tried saying swallowing a voice modulator, “I’m fine. You know me.”

Donald finally took his sailor shirt off, revealing his brand-new scars, and put the fixed hero uniform on.  
“I’m always fine,” he added as he jumped out of the window.

***

“Maybe he’s not coming. Maybe he got hurt,” paced Fenton around nervously.  
“Don’t worry patito. Back when I knew him, he always came late. Some things never change,” said officer Cabrera with a knowing smile.  
“You knew-“ started her son but was interrupted.  
“Speaking of things which had not changed,” smiled Paperinik from behind the armoured hero, “you have not aged a day bella donna Cabrera.”

She let him place a kiss on the back of her hand and smiled back.

“And I see you have brought your brother?” he pointed to Gizmoduck, who started to fume slightly underneath his helmet.

“Stop it, you flatterer. You know he’s my son.”  
Paperinik payed surprise: “Son? You can’t possibly be old enough…”  
“I’ve told you many times I’m old enough to be your mother. Fenton is actually about your age, now that I think about it,” she thought out loud.

Everybody’s beaks dropped to the floor.

Della pulled herself together first. “So you’re about Donald’s age!” she exclaimed loudly and nudged Scrooge.  
Donald thought he was about to faint. He had managed to keep his secret safe for so long and now-He turned to his uncle but he just payed him a death stare and grumbled to himself.

“Non importa,” said the hero, “have you found a spot for us yet or are we training in the streets?”  
“There is actually this old abandoned storehouse near my hou- nearby I mean,” blurted out Darkwing and slapped his beak. 

When the others turned to him, he gave them a nervous smile.

“Good, lead the way,” stepped in Scrooge, obviously unhappy about the whole situation.

Given that the others insisted on accompanying them, the three heroes could not swing over the rooftops or fly and the whole group ended up walking in a line, as little ducklings sometimes do.  
Donald tried to seem unapproachable, but Della caught up to him.  
They walked behind Scrooge, who every now and then gave the Duck Avenger another glare and continued on his way.

“Così...he is not still mad about the incidente way back then?” asked the now very nervous hero in hopes that the answer would take long enough, so that he wouldn’t have to talk much.  
“I guess a bit,” answered Della.  
“But mostly he is just sour about you and Donald,” she added with that same confidential grin she had whenever she made Donald talk about his “superhero friend”.  
“I don’t know what you mean,” he coldly answered whichever unasked question this was raising.  
“Oh yeah, of course, you don’t,” smiled Della again and nudged him in the arm.

Paperinik winced in pain. It was the wrong arm. Wounds like this took long to heal, as he had learned from practice.  
Della noticed and quietly stepped back a bit.  
They continued in silence, but it was eating Donald alive. What was it supposed to mean? Did everybody know Donald Duck was Paperinik? Were they just pulling his leg? Was he just the laughingstock again?

“Bene,” he finally whispered, “how much do you know?” He didn’t look at her because his eyes were fixed on Scrooge in front of him to check if he’s listening.  
“I knew it,” Della whispered back, “I mean, the way he talked, and still talks, about you and how he went to warn you – “  
Donald was bracing himself for the rest of the sentence.  
“- I simply knew you guys were in love!”  
He tore his gaze from his uncle in disbelief.  
“Don’t give me this look, it is obvious!”  
“But-“ Donald was grasping at straws, “what does it have to do with Scrooge?”  
To his further surprise Della chuckled: “He never liked anyone we dated, you should have seen him when he found out I was pregnant.”

Donald nodded, he remembered it quite well. All of the screams and death threats to the anonymous man. Then Scrooge even took out the limo, sitting behind the wheel despite not really knowing how to drive, and rode off into the night to find the culprit. He came back a few days later, empty handed, and just silently squeezed Della in his arms. But till this day, Donald was not sure Scrooge had not just lied and in actuality quietly disposed of the guy.

“Also, he thought you were an older guy seducing his little boy, so I kinda get it,” she pondered looking at her uncle’s back.  
“But I’m not-“ objected Paperinik, “he’s not-“  
“It’s ok, it’s different in Italy, right? And when it comes to Donald, well, do you think he would be able to hide something like that from his twin?” 

Thankfully, he didn’t have to answer because they had reached the end destination of their little walk. The abandoned storehouse. As if that day had not been surprising enough, the place had already been prepared, there were obstacles, stacks of cans as targets and even quite realistic cardboard cut-outs of two Evronians and their guns. Launchpad waved at the newcomers from the entrance and greeted the Duck Avenger. 

“Wow, you’re the Duck Avenger! I can’t believe you actually came! I’m a big fan! Do you like all this-“ he gestured all around him, “ me and Dr-“ But Darkwing held his beak shut and payed Paperinik a nervous glance while Launchpan muttered something which sounded suspiciously like “were building it all week”. 

“Si mi piace. Thank you,” he nodded at the pilot.

Gizmoduck turned to him: “So, where do we start?”  
There was a strange sharpness in his tone when he spoke.  
“Seeing that you must be some sort of genius, building all of your equipment as a teenager, something someone had not told me,” he glanced at his mother, “I suggest you start with that. I would actually love to know how does the anti-gravity device work.”

“No,” stepped in Darkwing, “what he has to do first is to show off his battle skills! I think that we both could benefit from this. Especially-“  
At that point Gizmoduck started talking back at him and Donald’s attention turned to another conversation. 

“-and he was a teenage superhero as well! So that beats both your favourites!” he caught Louie saying.  
“Yeah, but Gizmoduck is a scientist!” protested Huey.  
“Haven’t you heard - he is also a genius!”

From the other side, a different set of voices.  
“See, but it’s ok, they are the same age!”  
“Ye, but-“  
“Mr. Paperinik?”  
“Duck Avenger?”  
“Could you show us-“  
“Can you tell me-“  
“Explain-“  
“How did you do it? How can I do it?”

“…but if he was a teen superhero, that means that I just have to wait a few years and I can be just like him!” Louie’s voice broke the cacophony of calls and Donald snapped. He felt this familiar wave of anger roll through him, making him feel as if he was standing in a boiling pot of water.

“SHUT UP!!” he screamed so loudly, he felt his voice modulator move in his throat.  
In the newly formed silence, he turned to his nephew and grasped him by the shoulders.

“Listen il figlio mio, being hero is a tough and ungrateful job. Most people hate you and those who don’t,” he had to take a deep breath as he felt his eyes glisten and turned towards the rest of the small gathering.

“It is true, I started young. The tales of heroism beckoned me, and I’d decided to answer their call. But what awaited me was a life full of pain and misery. All those sleepless nights and wasted days when I was so tired, I could barely move but I had no excuse for it at work. All the people I had pushed away in fear they could get too close. My own family! But how can you talk, really talk, to anyone again once you’ve seen all of the triumphs and tragedies as I have! All the victories and what they’d cost, strange new dimensions and alien worlds and the vast emptiness of space – and every time I though, I was a goner and by sheer dumb luck I got out and the next day I had to do it all again! And again! And I had no reward or price or recognition back in my day, only now I’ve been gone for almost twenty years do people remember me fondly.”

He could feel them staring but at that point, he couldn’t stop anymore. He looked at Gizmoduck and Darkwing specifically.

“You want my advice? Fine, here it is – quit. Quit while you still can! It is not worth it…all the hurt and…the effort. You just get so tired after a while. But there is this suicidal part of you which keeps pushing you into that costume and you torture yourself every night and every day because life without pain is no longer an option for you at that point!”

He swore he saw something shift in the eyes of the two men.

“They love you…” whispered Darkwing so quietly, the others barely heard him.  
“But, you’ve saved so many…” mumbled Gizmoduck.

“No! I didn’t. I’m no hero and definitely no genius. Every single one of my big victories was somebody else’s doing. It was actually – “

He had to stop himself to take a breath as he had realized, he had not talked about any of this until now. 

“Who was it?” asked officer Cabrera gently.

“My friend. Her name was Xadhoom. She destroyed most of the Evronian ships and then…” he swallowed, “she sacrificed herself to give her people a chance of survival. That was Paperinik’s first big victory over the Evronians.”  
“The second, the one which I though had wiped out the rest, was thank to my-“  
His what - friend? Best buddy? His-  
“Uno. He was the genius behind all of my tech, the main strategist and my closest confidant. When all of the surviving Evronians attacked Earth, he had created a special kind of virus, which effected only their physiology and left the inhabitants of this planet be. But when distributing it, he overexerted himself to the point of no return. I had been hurt in the fight, but had offered to take the burden, that I’ve had a good run already…”

The whole scene was flashing in front of Donald’s eyes now. The blood seeping from his wound, the flashing lights, the dust and the rubble in his eyes and Uno’s calm voice, addressing him, calming him, telling him what was going to happen while he shouted back.

_I could do it! Let me go, Uno! Please!_

“He wouldn’t let me.”

_Abbi cura di te, vecchio amico. Mi hai reso più umano di ... Grazie vecchio mantello. Ti incontrerò di nuovo. Te…te……te………_

If his eyes had been glistening before, he was downright crying now.

“I held him in my arms.”

He realised he’d been looking at the ground again, ashamed, but he lifted his gaze.

“This job gives you nothing but takes everything. If you change your mind, I will not judge you, if anything, I’ll think that you’ve probably made the right choice. But whatever it is you decide for, I can’t help you with it. I’m just a washed-up wreck of something, that was hardly ever a person, if at all.”

He slowly turned back to Louie.  
“I’m sorry I’m not the hero you’ve made me up to be, il figlio mio.”

And with that, he used his grappling hook to get away and he didn’t look back, despite the vague feeling that he had heard voices shouting his name.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:
> 
> Ciao amico come stai oggi? - Hello friend how are you today?  
> Lo come sono? - How am I?  
> bella donna - pretty woman (oooooooooooh, pretty woman, walking down the street...not the film but idk...writing notes and tags is kinda boring)  
> Non importa - Never mind  
> Così - So  
> Bene - good  
> Si mi piace - Yes I like it  
> il figlio mio - my son  
> Abbi cura di te, vecchio amico. Mi hai reso più umano di ... Grazie vecchio mantello. Ti incontrerò di nuovo. Te…te……te………  
> \- Take care of yourself, old friend. You made me more human than ... Thank you old cape. I will meet you again. I ... I ...... I ......... (I know this translation is not exact, but I have taken liberties due to the limitations of Google translate)
> 
> Also, just something for you to notice, fake foreigner Donald does the thing, where he uses bits of Italian in his speech, which actual bilingual Fenton and even his mom, don't. I know people complain about this sort of stuff (so do I) but here it's done for a purpose.  
> *mike drop*
> 
> Also also - can you tell where in this fic did I take a several months break? I had to stop writing because of corona and then I had my bachelor state exam so - the second half of this fic is written by someone with an English degree. Cool right?
> 
> (I again apologize to any and all Italians reading this. Sorry.)


End file.
